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I think the stewarding was a bit dubious here. Two moves that do not constitute a penalty by themselves, constitute a penalty together?

Verstappen’s second move reminds me a bit of the Perez – Massa incident in Canada. It doesn’t look like he actually turns right, but he does not curve left as much as the track does. I’m not sure it should be a penalty, but I agree it was a little dangerous.

@npf1, I remember the 1995 season as being interesting for the close racing between Schumacher and Hill, even if the championship standings and the statistics suggest a Schumacher walk-over. So I jogged my memory a little with the help op Wikipedia, and found at least one statistic that suggests that the FW17B was very competitive: Coulthard and Hill combined had 13 poles, Schumacher only 4. The Williams was a bit unreliable, though, with quite a few gearbox failures, and it also retired from the lead twice.

My earlier point, though, was that this speed was not consistently transformed into wins and points by the Williams drivers. I was a fan of Hill, but he was never in the same league as Senna or Schumacher, and he was having a very scrappy season, not entirely dissimilar to Hamilton’s tribulations in 2011. In addition to running into the back of Schumacher during the British and Italian GPs, he also spun out of the Canadian GP, the European GP, the Japanese GP, and the German Grand Prix (from the lead). Schumacher, I felt, was delivering a 2012-Alonso-like performance, always getting the maximum from slightly inferior equipment. With Schumacher’s only competition the Williams pair, this meant he usually won. With Senna in the Williams, however, I think the statistics of that season would have been completely different.

In the “if Senna were alive” scenarios, I am surprised so many would put Schumacher down for the 95 title. If I recall correctly, the Williams that year was actually quite a good car, only Hill made far too many mistakes, and DC was not fully up to speed yet. With Senna behind the wheel, that car must surely have won the championship. About 1994 I am not so sure Senna would have won, as Schumacher was already two race wins up; also, we speak now as if we are sure that Schumacher’s car was illegal; are we? I think I used to read some Autosport at the time, but I don’t recall that much fuss about the supposed traction control.

I am also surprised that many people put Alonso as the deserving winner of the 2010 championship. Sure, the last race in Abu Dhabi Ferrari messed up the strategy, but over the season I thought Vettel was a worthy champion. He had the best car (and anyway, does that make him less deserving? Otherwise we could nominate anyone as worthy champion), but he was also very unlucky with unreliability. Also, I’d like to point out that even if Vettel made errors in 2010, Alonso arguable made more (China jump start, Monaco FP3 crash, Silverstone drive-through for overtake on Kubica, and spinning out of the race in Spa).

The only time I recall thinking that another guy should have won the championship was in ’05 with Raikkonen and Alonso. A couple of times Raikkonen retired from the lead, with Alonso behind him to pick up the win. Mind you, I wasn’t following F1 that closely back then.

Good race, and good to see Rowland enter the championship battle with his win.

That last-lap manoeuvre from Sainz was very strange, though, I would like to see his onboard for the final couple of corners. Firstly it seemed that he had gotten by Stevens, but when the camera picked him up again he was just behind, and then he ran off the track for no reason that I could see. Out of frustration?

Rowland on pole for the second race as the only driver under the 1m40s, with Sainz (P5) struggling to put a lap together in the second run. I was also happy to see my compatriot Visser (P14) showing improving form after a difficult start to her season.

I was planning to post a printscreen of the live timing, but I see I can only post urls.

I think the current points system is quite good, but perhaps it is not suited that well to one team dominating, as then you would like a more pronounced difference between second and first. I’ve just been reading up on the 1988 season (partly to learn how the dominance of then compared to that of now – so far the WO5s have not lapped the entire field yet) and a strange situation with the points system also occurred then.

Because the ’11 best results’-rule was still in place, the championship was decided effectively by Bernie’s medal idea: the driver with the most wins is champion; for an identical number of wins, the number of second places is counted, and so on. Senna had 8 wins versus Prost’s 7, and was champion despite scoring fewer points than Prost in total. So in some ways the points situation was the opposite of what it is now: Lewis’s DNF would not have mattered so much because you would be allowed to disregard a few results, and his three wins to one would come in handy when the final points would be tallied up at the end of the season.

@bradley13, I thought it was quite hilarious: “another guy goes off”, etc. About the crash at Imola: I did not see that one coming. Seriously, crashes like that one make me appreciate a bit more the FIA’s policy to ground the cars in anything more than intermediate conditions.

About De Vries, it’s his third year in the 2.0 categories, so it would certainly be time for him to prove he has what it takes. I think he was third in his first race (or first race weekend), but since then he hasn’t had the success of Kvyat or Vandoorne.

I am a bit torn on the issue of raising the weight. On the one hand, I do not wish Formula 1 drivers to be sick and miserable because of a weight limit that could easily be changed in the regulations. On the other hand, Formula 1 cars are heavy (and slow) enough as it is.

Mostly though, I feel that a driver’s health is his own (and his team’s, in terms of support staff) responsibility. Formula 1 is not the only sport in which a person’s weight is important. Runners, cyclists, jockeys, and many other athletes have learned how to be light in a healthy way, and perhaps this is relatively new for F1 drivers. Dehydrating yourself, not eating any carbohydrates while training, and not carrying a drinks bottle in a desert race are all overkill in my opinion.

Pretty disappointed Frijns didn’t get the GP2 seat, I thought he had also found some sponsorship. I thought his connection to Caterham would mean a fresh start to his career. If he would have impressed in a full season of GP2, perhaps a seat would open up the following season in F1 that wouldn’t require sponsorship. As it is, it’s another year of hanging around the garage doing nothing for Robin. Exactly how much track time did he get last year at Sauber, 80 laps in the YDT?

Even if they do give him a few FP1 runs, it’s difficult to do much to impress other teams that way, and for a 2015 Caterham seat he would still need a bag of money – a marked difference with Bottas who Williams were planning to take on merit.

I don’t think the cars will be that much slower over a single lap. Perhaps with the power train fully turned up, that part of the car might actually be more powerful than the current engines. I don’t know how much slower the new tyres will be (why can’t the fans have access to the tyre test that is going on now?!), but I hope that Pirelli still manage to produce some quick tyres.

The race might be a different matter, if drivers are in constant fuel save mode; I hope it won’t be too bad. Of course, already over the last couple of years the pace of backmarker F1 cars on full tanks and old tyres was pretty terrible already, so in that regard 2014 might not be anything new. Just take a look at the lap times of this year’s spanish GP: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/05/12/2013-spanish-grand-prix-lap-times-fastest-laps/. At the end of his first stint, Chilton was lapping firmly in the 1m35s.

One problem with getting rid of radio communication is that teams will find other ways of communicating with their drivers, who will then have to peer into the cockpit to find information about brake temperatures, tyre pressures, gaps to drivers in front and behind, pit stop strategies, etc. Of course, the FIA can try to put a ban on drivers receiving any information by any other means than the pit board, but in my opinion Formula 1 has far too many rules already.

I also don’t mind the current instructions from the pit wall. Perhaps people do not want to hear messages of “save the tyres”, but then I think the problem is more that there is such a need for tyre preservation. All in all, I would like to be able to listen to more team radio, rather than less.

I’m actually surprised the other teams don’t run their race drivers. It seems like a good opportunity to learn the differences between this year’s and next year’s rubber, especially with a car you know well. And even if the engineers themselves might not learn much as it is a Pirelli test (though there is no need for it this time, as all teams have been invited), it might still be useful for the race drivers to get an early feel for next year’s tyres.

I find it especially strange that Red Bull does not send Vettel, with all the fuss Christian Horner made about Mercedes using their race drivers in the Pirelli tyre test early this year. Instead, they send Buemi who has not done a single kilometer in the RB9.

Actually, I expected Mercedes to field Bird (maybe they still will – it’s a three day test) after losing him the young driver’s test earlier this year. I wonder what colour helmets the Mercedes drivers will use, though :-)

I find it interesting that many people put Red Bull so low, while putting Mercedes at number 1. I would certainly like to see a change of the competitive order at the front, but what exactly have Mercedes going for them? A midseason report that they had requested wider rear tyres, and they recently blocking a 10kg weight increase. Encouraging signs, but is it enough to offset Red Bull’s track record of winning all titles in the past four years? I am not betting against Vettel and Newey just yet.

Other than that, I agree with what seems to be the general consensus: Lotus slipping back after losing Allison and De Beer and having no money (though I don’t think they will slip that far – they still made a big step in the second half of the season when at least Allison was not there); McLaren moving back towards the front in what can only be hoped to have been an uncharacteristically uncompetitive 2013 season, rather than the start of a decline; Williams moving forward after the banning of exhaust-blown diffusers, and Force India moving up after starting on their 2014 challenger early (and hopefully a strong driver pairing in Hulkenberg-Perez!):

Best:
– the unpredictability of the start of the season: in both qualifying and race there was a question of who was going to finish first (yes, Mercedes scored a lot of poles, but it was always close and anyway Mercedes have two drivers capable of getting the pole).
– Ricciardo’s season: I think he was superb on Saturdays, and even if he was not quite as consistent on Sundays, I feel he was still better than Vergne. I think he deserved the Red Bull seat for 2014.
And from a Hamilton fan:
– Hamilton’s weekend in Hungary. He was fantastically quick all weekend, and on race day he was simply on fire. He made passes as soon as he came up on other drivers on a track where it is difficult to overtake – in stark contrast to his end-of-season struggles where he was unable to overtake even on circuits with straights of over 1km.
– Hamilton’s pole lap in Silverstone. He was half a second faster than Vettel which had Sebastian wondering out loud whether Lewis had found a shortcut somewhere.

Worst:
– The financial struggles of F1 teams, with drivers and suppliers not being paid.
– The farcical Quantum investment saga. From the outside it very much looks like Lotus is being strung along by a con man for six months and counting, making everybody involved look like fools.
– Ferrari choosing Raikkonen over Hulkenberg. I would have loved to see Nico get a top drive and take on Alonso.
– The way Pirelli is treated by the FIA and the F1 community. The tyre supplier should be able to test its tyres to ensure a safe quality product, and not be hauled in front of a tribunal when it does. Finally, Pirelli being left in the dark about a 2014 contract, with the threat of Michelin being brought in at the 11th hour, was very poor form.
– The seeming decline of F1. The only good thing to have happened to F1 in recent history is the US Grand Prix in Austin, but reading the comments on this site it seems many long-time fans are falling out love with the sport. Even Keith, the Head F1Fanatic himself, seems to have his doubts over the current era of F1.
– As a refinement of the above: the proliferation of silly rules in F1. The Q3 tyre rule, the mandatory pit stop rule, DRS; the problem is that these things do not go away after some time, and the next stupid rule is already looming: two mandatory pit stops per race.